A Night Too Cold For Snow
by Kyrie74
Summary: Thousands of miles from Paris, the Phantom encounters a lovely woman who offers him friendship and understanding. She might be the one woman who can draw him out of his own darkness...if only...
1. Shelter From The Cold

_When I let Christine go, when I sent her away with the Vicomte de Chagny, I wanted to only to die. How good it would have been if, at that moment, I could have simply ceased to exist._

After Christine left, the mob came. I heard their rage, saw their flickering torches, the armed officers among them.

I left my home to their anger. I took only a mask and the money I had "earned" as the Opera Ghost.

It had been years since I lived outside the confines of the Opera. As I walked the darkened back streets, I knew I could do it again.

_If I wanted to_.

For those first few years, I stayed in Paris. I lived in cemeteries, in catacombs, in hidden places. A ghost without a home. I was not ready to leave Christine yet. As long as I remained in Paris, I could at least be close to her.

I did not try to see her, but I could follow the events of her life from afar. The society columns of the newspapers often made mention of the young Vicomte de Chagny and his beautiful wife.

I left Paris when I read of the birth of her first child. I knew then that she was truly lost to me.

A figure always on the edge of life, on the edge of humanity, I moved from place to place. Sometimes, I dashed from one new scene to the next, sometimes I lingered. But I always moved on, always alone.

It was a December evening. One of the coldest nights I had ever known. Above the city, the sky was like black glass. The frigid air seemed to burn my lungs with each breath as I walked up a steep hill. I paused beside a tiny park, a triangle of dead grass surrounded by an iron rail.

At the top of the hill stood an old church. Atop one of its twin spire, a cross gleamed in the moonlight.

I had rarely set foot inside a church. I knew that a sympathetic priest had baptized me and named me Erik when my mother refused to hold or name the little monster that she given birth to me. He had down what little he could to teach me in those earlier years, before the gypsies, before the fairs, before Russia and Persia.

At that moment, however, I wanted only to get in out of the stinging cold.

As I climbed the worn sandstone steps, I could see the place was in poor repair. The carved stone pilasters around the massive doors were eroded. Flakes of stones fluttered to the ground as my cloak brushed them.

I pushed open the door, feeling the cold metal of the knob through my glove.

Damn! I had hoped to find the place empty. The church was cold and dimly lit, but a dozen or so people knelt it the first few pews, led in song by a priest.

Vespers, I thought.

Music still attracted me beyond all resistence. Standing in the darkest shadow in the rear of the clerestory, the words came to me and I sang with them

_Salve Regina, mater misericordiae, vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve._

The words meant little to me, but it was the first time I had sung since Christine had left me.

I sang quietly in that dark, dusty corner, but the priest must have heard me. He turned and glanced toward the rear of the church. I did not stop, though I turned my face so the candlelight would not shine on my white mask.

_Ad te clamanus exsules filii Havae._

The priest was not the only one who heard. When the hymn ended, the people leaving the church glanced about the place anxiously.

As I stood there, still and silent, I remembered how the ballet rats and scene shifters used to scurry down the hallways with that same nervous expression. For a moment, it felt good to be a ghost again.

I watched them pass me. A tall white-haired man with a pink face, a young couple, a plump woman and her husband...

A young woman paused at the door to say good night to the priest. I could not see her well, I only knew that she was a young woman with a heavy braid of dark hair coiled beneath her hat.

"Ah, it is colder now," the priest remarked.

"Yes, Uncle, too cold even for snow," the woman replied.

The priest remained a moment longer. He looked around the church one last time. Then he left, shutting the heavy door with a thud.

I was alone inside the church, alone in darkness. A single candle in a red glass lamp flickered near the altar.

I took one of the plain white candles from the bracket near the door and lit it from the sanctuary lamp. I walked slowly down the main aisle. Between two of the side altars, I found an arched door. I pushed it open and found myself in the vestry. Another door opened to a flight of stairs. I followed them up. I came to a small loft. A sort of white-washed mezzanine lined with wooden cabinets. There was a large window of amber glass which glowed in the moonlight.

The room was dusty, it appeared to be seldom used. I decided I would spend the night there. I found a spot on the floor that was not too dusty and curled up in my cloak.

There was nowhere else for me to go on that winter's night.

A night too cold for snow.

* * *

_**Author's Note: **I suppose I should warn you now, this is going to be a sad one. I've already written the end. Now, I have to fill in the chapters in between. This is based mostly on Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of the Phantom (esp. the new movie), with a few nods to Leroux and Susan Kay. The rest of the charecters and setting are my own. _


	2. Cracks In The Stone

I was up before dawn, long before the priest returned to celebrate the first Mass of the day. Shaking the dust from my cloak, I made my way back down the stairs and out through the vestry.

The church was still dark, but years of living in the cellars of the Opera House had trained my eyes to see in poor light.

I walked down the aisle slowly, intending to leave. I would toss some money into the poor box near the door as payment for my shelter and walk out into the chilly morning.

As I walked through the silence, the dawn's light flooded through the window above the organ loft. I found myself drowning in a sea of purple, blue, rose, and gold.

The light was exquisite, but it was too sudden, too bright. I turned away from it.

I looked around the old church. And I was shocked by the shabbiness of it. I saw - with the eyes of the architect I once was - the chipped plaster, the cracks in the stone. I saw white stains where water had seeped inside. The place was slowly crumbling.

The jangle of keys in the lock warned me that the priest was returning. There was a side door within my reach.

I could have left then.

Instead, I flew up the stairs to the choir loft, and, pressing myself against the wall beneath the colorful window, I waited.


End file.
